Biodiversity for Development and Poverty Alleviation

Introduction and Background

The Biodiversity for Development initiative was established by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (SCBD) with the support of the French and the German governments as a follow-up of the Conference on Biodiversity in European Development Cooperation (Paris – September 2006) and the last Trondheim/UN Conference on Ecosystems and People – Biodiversity for Development – The road to 2010 and beyond (Norway – November 2007).

The main goal of this initiative is to promote the integration of biodiversity considerations into sectoral policies or cross-sectoral strategies (e.g. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) or Sustainable Development Strategies) as well as ensuring the development dimension in National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs).

The three inter-related objectives of the initiative are:

To promote the integration of biodiversity considerations into sectoral and crosssectoral policies at the regional and national levels, as well as to incorporate the development dimension into NBSAPs;

To facilitate the exchange of experiences and the dissemination of lessons learned and good practices regarding the integration of biodiversity into development sectors and poverty reduction strategies and programmes;

To establish a network of professionals from among the main organizations and cooperation agencies in charge of development at the international and regional levels.

This initiative is led by the “Biodiversity for Development” unit and was launched officially during COP 9. The unit collaborates clostely with the relevent programmes of work of the Convention.

Events at COP 9

The initiative was launched during a high level panel discussion on Biodiversity for Development and Poverty Alleviation on the 27th of May 2008.

Numerous other development-related events were also held during COP 9 by Parties, Secretariat of the Convention, bi and multi-lateral development agencies, NGOs and others.